Invasion of Poland

The Invasion of Poland occurred in September-October 1939 when Nazi Germany and its puppet state of Slovakia invaded Poland in the first campaign of World War II. Instigated by an alleged clash between the Polish Army and the Wehrmacht at a German radio station in Gleiwitz, the German invasion tested the blitzkrieg style of warfare, in which the Luftwaffe air force destroyed the enemy air force on the ground and disabled their ability to muster up an effective counterattack. The Wehrmacht then sent in its panzer (tank) divisions under Heinz Guderian to smash through the Polish forces, which were poorly equipped and had not seen any fighting since 1920. The Soviet Union decided to take advantage of the German invasion to annex eastern Poland on 17 September 1939, and the Germans and Soviets signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to ensure that both sides would have a non-aggression agreement. Poland was divided in two, with the Germans establishing the "General Government" in western Poland and the Soviets taking over the east. The Polish government went into exile in London in the United Kingdom, and both the UK and France declared war on Germany due to its invasion of their ally. The aftermath of the German and Soviet invasion would see the Germans round up the Polish Jews and force them into ghettoes, while the Soviets massacred most of the captured Polish generals in the Katyn massacre, among others. Poland suffered 199,700 casualties in the invasion, while the invaders lost 59,000 troops.